Postcards From the Lake: More Fun with Friends

When we last left our family and friends, Rick had set off from friends Anne and Clayton's home to attend a memorial for a cycling mentor. He would ride the fifty or so miles and after the event, return to their home for another overnight and then take off on a bike hike. I, on the other hand, would skip the memorial, enjoy time with our hosts and then head home to enjoy two days of just-me time before the next round of activity.

Oh, the things we think we are going to do.

I never answer my phone driving but when I saw on the screen it was Rick, I was worried and though I was headed home, answered. A good thing I did. He had crashed out, cracking his helmet, damaging his glasses, and bending the wheel of his bike -- not to mention landing on his head and hip. So, of course I turned around and got him.

He was only a couple miles from the memorial so he got there and that's where I picked him up -- in the beautiful farmland of mid-Michigan. After the memorial tributes we both enjoyed the after-event refreshments, we loaded up and headed back to the lake.

 

Well, not quite. First we bought a helmet. Then we got his glasses "untwisted." Then we went back to Anne and Clayton's to get the things he'd left there, planning to return. 

Finally, after a stop for gas, we returned home to a hungry cat and time for a short swim. 

Not the day either of us had expected, to be sure. But it did mean that the following morning, when my friend from high school, Nancy, was coming to the cottage for a meet-up, that her husband, Bill, would come along too! They brought the pastries, we had the coffee and fruit. And the conversation was terrific.

It's lovely that you can get together with someone you knew way-back-when and five decades later (well, we DID see each other once last summer) it still works. The conversation grows, you are sympatico on many of your beliefs about the world, and you still like each other!

I leave you with another couple paintings to remind us that fall will arrive. 

But I hope, not soon.

I'm just starting to have a summer. But there's more family to come!